


Rediscovering You

by Artemis1000



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bickering, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-War, Veterans, Worldbuilding, Yavin 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: Poe Dameron didn't expect to run into Kylo Ren years after he had retreated into civilian life on Yavin 4. He sure wasn't happy to have him there, and if he couldn't make him leave someone would need to keep an eye on him. He sure didn't expect the effect that after all these years they would drift back together with nearly the same ease as they had before Kylo's fall, before the war, before it all went to hell. He sure isn't sure that he likes all these new-old feelings.





	Rediscovering You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MidgardianNerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidgardianNerd/gifts).



> Thank you for your wonderful prompts, I hope you enjoy this story.
> 
> Content Advice: Themes of remembering/grieving/mourning for a deceased parent.

The war had ended five years ago. Life was good on Yavin 4.

The air was heavy with the rich smells of damp soil and rain-splattered leaves and Poe’s boots kept sinking slightly into the ground as he wandered among the koyo melon trees. A flock of whisper birds had settled in the trees to rest, the branches swayed under the weight of the majestic birds with their rich golden feathers and orange-beaked blue heads.

“What do you say, Beebs, any chance of finding a ripe melon?”

The droid chirped his disbelief, followed by yet another disgruntled complaint about the mud sticking to his ball frame.

“I know, buddy,” Poe said, reaching down to pat the dome-shaped head, “I’ll clean you up once we get home. Hose you down and then it’s a nice oil bath for you. Afterward you’ll be as good as new.”

BB-8’s grumbling dwindled away to a mollified mere token protest and Poe gave him another pat before wandering away to check on the trees at the far end of the grove, which had been damaged by beetles last year and still needed more pampering.

Life was good, life was calm.

On most days the war felt so far away it might as well have been part of another man’s life, just one of the fanciful stories bored farmers liked to tell when they met in the outpost’s sole cantina. Whenever Poe went they wouldn’t give it a rest until he told his stories. He went rarely these days.

At the other end of the grove, BB-8 was chasing a hungry woolamander back into the giant Massassi trees that made for most of Yavin 4’s rain forest.

Poe kept smiling all the way back to his family home and all through BB-8’s retellings of his latest heroic woolamander battle. He was so proud of his victory, Poe didn’t have the heart to point out that chances were, a whole group of the white and blue monkeys had descended on the grove to search for ripe melons as soon as the two of them had left.

 

“Did you hear anything interesting in town?” Poe asked over dinner.

“You could go yourself,” Kes Dameron said instead and Poe rolled his eyes in good-natured exasperation. It was an argument they had often.

He liked the quiet life he shared with his father ever since he had returned to Yavin 4 but sometimes he still treated Poe like the teenager who had left Yavin for the flight academy, forgetting that he had grown up and become a leader in his own right since then. He didn’t need to be set up on play dates.

“I was busy with the northern grove,” he reminded him. Around this time of the year, right until the end of koyo harvesting season, even their small town would see its fair share of travelers and merchants. Poe didn’t like to be visiting the outpost then, it always led to too much gawking and too many questions which sooner or later always turned uncomfortable. If he wanted to be treated as a war hero he wouldn’t have returned to his father’s farm.

“Well, if you’re going to be a loner you can do it at the old Stellna farm.”

“Dad…”

Before he could protest further at being sent to the abandoned old farmhouse, Kes added, “I heard in town someone’s staying there again. Some Corellian, nobody could tell me much about him. Keeps to himself, was only in town once to get supplies.”

Poe gave him a puzzled look. “That farm’s been decaying for years. Who would be spending money on a ruin?”

All he got was a pointed look. “I have no clue but you’ll be able to tell me by this time tomorrow.”      

Poe huffed but he didn’t protest anymore. A quiet life in retirement or not, he still liked meeting people and making friends, as long as it didn’t turn into being gawked at like he was another tourist attraction. Besides, it would be rude not to greet your new neighbors.

 

During his trip out to the Stellna farm, Poe decided the Corellian had to be one of these Core Worlders who settled in the _idyllic_ Outer Rim without any idea in their idealistic heads just how much work a farmer’s life actually entailed. Yavin 4 with its picturesque, unspoiled rainforests and rich wildlife, as well as the patina-dulled flair of Rebel Alliance heroism, was a particular magnet for such people. They rarely lasted longer than a year or two.

He would be welcoming and friendly and even helpful, he decided, just because that was how he was; he didn’t like to see people fail. But whoever the Corellian was, Poe didn’t expect him to stay long enough to become relevant to his life.

He parked his speeder right in front of the main building. It looked just as decayed as Poe remembered it, but there was another speeder parked out front and the rubble and rusting farm equipment had been cleared away.

“Hello?” he called, then when he didn’t hear a noise again, louder, “hello? Anybody home?”

There was a sound from behind the house, as if something heavy had fallen, or been dropped, and then a stream of cursing by a male voice.

Poe snickered to himself as he walked around the house to find a man standing with his back to him, still grumbling as he threw spilled tools back into a box. He was tall and athletic, with black hair and sweaty pale skin already turning pink with sunburn.

“You need a hand, buddy?” He tried very hard to keep the laughter out of his voice.

The man froze again, dropping two hydrospanners back into the mud. In the tank top he wore, there could be no mistaking that he had tensed up like someone ready to attack – or to bolt. “Dameron.”

And then he did move, he turned around, and Poe found himself looking into dark eyes, just as dark and troubled as the last time they had seen another here on Yavin 4.

He hadn’t looked into these eyes since, Poe realized with a start. _Kylo Ren_ had never faced him without his helmet.

He felt like the ground beneath him was moving. Or maybe that was just his legs betraying him. Yeah, likely it was just his legs having turned to jelly.

He took an involuntary half-step back before he could even stop himself. “You,” Poe ground out between gritted teeth. He was already reaching for his blaster, only to grasp nothing but empty air where the holster should have been. He hadn’t carried a blaster since the end of the war. His heart beat faster now, he could feel sweat trickle down the back of his neck. “What are you doing here?!”

He knew he should be angry, at the back of his mind Poe knew he should be angry but he couldn’t muster it. All he felt in this moment was numbness as he watched his two neatly divided lives crash into another.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Kylo Ren said, looking every bit as shaken as Poe felt.

Poe snorted, though there was no heat behind the scorn. He still felt nothing but numb. “It’s my moon. Where else should I be?”

Kylo opened his mouth. Not a sound came out. He seemed to be just as much as a loss what to say as Poe.

So they just stood there in silence, while Poe still keenly felt the absence of his blaster.

Kylo Ren shouldn’t have been here on Yavin 4, he knew that much. It was the only thing he knew anymore.

Everything about him had been hushed up after the end of the war, the memory of too many Republic heroes would have been tarnished if the once Supreme Leader’s identity had been publicized. Poe hadn’t wanted to know what became of him and his redemption, he had consciously chosen not to ask. Ben Solo had walked out of his life many years ago. It was over. It was done. He had spent long enough telling himself that he was fine with it being over and done with that it had stopped hurting for real and he hadn’t wished to re-open these wounds.

“How…?”

A muscle twitched in Ren’s jaw. There was that scar on his face now, one which Ben hadn’t had. He looked older, naturally. But his eyes were still the same.

He turned away abruptly, turning his _back_ on Poe, and he realized that too should have infuriated him… except Kylo was turning his back on him, trusting Poe not to attack him. Even after everything.

Poe watched him go back to picking up the scattered tools.

“I’m here for the temples.”

Of course. Yavin 4’s temples, built by the alien Massassi and by the Sith Lords of ancient times, attracted many treasure hunters, adventurers and historians. It made sense for a Force user to be interested in them, all the more so one with adventurous smuggler blood.

It just… It wasn’t fair that out of all the galaxy he would come to the place Poe had gone to get away from everything he stood for.

Yavin 4’s warm, humid air suddenly felt suffocating to Poe.

“I… I need to go,” he said and turned on his heel. He would later reassure himself that he hadn’t fled, it had been a mere tactical retreat.

 

“You’ve got no right to be here!”

There had been no anger yesterday, only numbness.

Today, the numbness was impossibly out of reach no matter how hard Poe tried to regain it, all he could find was more fire. He’d woken up like this, driven by a raw, restless energy the likes of which he hadn’t felt since the days when the injustices of war had fueled him, had barely taken the time to tell his father he would be out before driving back to the no-longer-abandoned farm.

He’d half expected Ren to be gone, or for it to turn out he’d never been anything but a mirage. He wasn’t.

“You’ve got no right!” he declared louder when Kylo wouldn’t even look up from the speeder engine he was tinkering with. “At least look at me when I’m talking to you!”

“I’ve got no right?”

He was older now, but with his shirt and hands greasy, his hair damp with sweat, he looked so much like the young man who had laughed with Poe as they climbed around the inner workings on the Millennium Falcon.

He towered over Poe as he straightened to his full height, his broad shoulders were stiff with tension – with anger – as he stalked towards him. “Don’t tell me what I can do, _Dameron_ ,” he ground out.

Poe gulped. Every single animal instinct was screaming at him to flee. Kylo Ren was dangerous. Even if he couldn’t choke you with a thought he would be dangerous but he could and now he was all but vibrating with anger.

And so was Poe. He would be kriffed if he was going to be sent running in his own home.

“I’ve got news for you, that’s exactly what I’m doing here, _Solo_.” He took a deliberate step towards him.

They ended up chest to chest, with Poe forced to crane his neck to meet Kylo’s glower head on. But he didn’t back down. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. No matter that every fiber in his body told him that this man was far too dangerous. All he did was set his jaw, a clear challenge of _what’cha gonna do about it?_ in his eyes.

The cries of a horde of woolamanders made them both look in the direction of the trees, breaking their staring match with none the victor.

With a start, Poe became aware that he had balled his hands into fists. He forced them open, forced himself to brush past Kylo – he couldn’t back off, but he could brush past him as if he didn’t even matter. It had the added benefit of not having to look at him, though knowing he had his back turned to someone as dangerous as him it didn’t feel like a victory at all.

“What are you really doing here?” he demanded again. This time he didn’t sound quite so angry anymore, though he still felt it. The fury was boiling inside him now, a low comfortable boil that heated and energized him, and could spill over again if provoked. But for now it was calmed enough that he could think, and he needed to think here. He had to be smart, had to think fast. Kylo Ren wasn’t someone to be underestimated.

Kylo huffed in annoyance. “I told you yesterday: I’m here for the temples.”

“There are Sith temples all over the galaxy.” No, he simply couldn’t do it. Avoidance wasn’t him. Poe turned around, once more fixing a scrutinizing gaze on Kylo. “Why here?”

Kylo clenched his teeth, expressions that Poe couldn’t put a name to flickering over his face and replaced by the next before he could even try to make sense of them. In the end, he abruptly turned his back on Poe. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not here _for you_ ,” he spat.

Poe bristled. “You never were!”

They went back to silence.

Kylo worked on the speeder as if Poe weren’t even here – except he wasn’t, Poe knew enough about speeders to tell he was getting absolutely nothing done – and eventually, Poe left just as wordlessly, promising himself he would just ignore Ren’s presence for however long he had to bear it.

 

He didn’t return the next day.

But he returned the day after.

He’d never been good at keeping himself from picking at a wound.

“I’m about to leave,” Kylo told him, and indeed he already had a pack fastened to his speeder.

Poe nodded briskly. “I should be keeping an eye on you anyway.”

They set off in a quiet which a clueless observer might have mistaken for silent companionship, Kylo taking the lead slightly while Poe was at his side, half a speeder length behind him. They couldn’t talk like this, which was a perk, really.

They parked near one of the smaller temples but didn’t approach it directly, instead choosing to poke around in the jungle surrounding it for something which Poe didn’t know. He strongly suspected Kylo didn’t either, that he just didn’t want anyone accompanying him when he went inside.

“So, what’s it to you? I never thought you’d end up a galactic treasure hunter.” He snorted. “You _do_ realize there’s no treasure to be found in these temples, right? If there ever was you’re a couple thousand years too late.”

Kylo looked like he was gritting his teeth. Good. “Ancient Sith temples often hold secrets which only Force users can discover.”

Poe made it a point to roll his eyes. “Like I said. A couple of thousands of years of scavenging Jedi and Sith too late.”

He didn’t respond right away, focusing on pushing some stubborn undergrowth out of the way with the Force. “It’s not why I’m here.”

“Sure you’re not,” Poe muttered to himself.

“You know why I think you’re here?” he asked after several minutes of silence, interrupted only by the natural sounds of Yavin 4’s rain forest. There was a leaden weight in his belly. One he didn’t want to acknowledge. But…

He stopped suddenly. “You know, you can keep stomping through the forest as if you can outrun your problems if you outrun me but I’m hot and sticky and I’m tired of beating about the bushes.”

Kylo walked two more steps before he too stopped, seemed to consider and finally stomped back to Poe. His face was taut with anger again. “What’s that then?”

Poe gulped. Suddenly, he was all leaden weight, both in his stomach and his throat. “Because you remember it, too.”

It stood between them then, unspoken, their past: Poe and Ben, first as children then as teenagers, as young men, and all the memories that tied them to Yavin 4.

There was hardly anything on his home moon which Poe couldn’t associate with some memory of Ben if only he tried hard enough – for all these years since he returned, he’d tried hard to disassociate.

“So what if I do?”

Kylo sounded too neutral. Poe had never known him to be truly indifferent to anything, he always felt _something_. That had been the problem with him and being a Jedi.

It had always been what Poe liked best about him. _Loved_ about him, though he had tried his best to forget ever since.

He gulped, hand flying up to rub at his forehead. The ball was in his court now. He didn’t know a karking thing to do with it. “I remember,” he said awkwardly. He rolled his shoulders. The forest ground sure was awfully interesting to look at. “I figured you didn’t.”

“Poe…”

They both froze.

Poe looked up. Kylo couldn’t have looked more shell-shocked if he’d just gotten a jolt with that Force lightning. He licked his lips. “I…”

How did he feel really? He’d been angry to have Kylo Ren of all people show up here but the war was over. Somehow, after everything, they’d ended it on the same side. For whatever that was worth.

“I’m glad you didn’t fry it all away while you were hiding under that mask.”

Kylo made a noise that was half bark, half choked laughter. It sounded a lot like the Ben Solo Poe had once known. “Of course you’d bring up the helmet.”

Poe grinned. It didn’t come easily, but it wasn’t fake either. Some things were just harder than others. “You were running around the galaxy with a duck mask over your face. You bet I’m gonna bring it up.”

“It wasn’t a _duck_.”

His grin widened. “Sure it wasn’t.”

Kylo grunted in annoyance. “Shut up and come along.”

“Sooo… does that mean you’re done walking me in angry circles around the forest?”

“Don’t tell me you’re tired already.”

“ _You wish_!”

Later, when he laid in bed and reflected on the day, Poe would be frightened by how easy it had been to shake off all these years in-between and fall back into the banter they had once shared while plowing through Yavin 4’s forests.

While they were out there all he could think was that he could finally breathe freely in Kylo Ren’s presence.

 

It was actually another week until Kylo decided it was time to enter one of the temples. By then, Poe had been half convinced the entire exploration story was just a cover-up for something else. Either way, it mollified him that Kylo had roundabout invited him to come along for the expedition.

Over the past week he’d been out to the farm two more days – just because someone had to keep an eye on the resident Sith lurking about, he told himself – and it was thoroughly creepy, but as long as they pretended that the war and everything that happened during it hadn’t happened they could almost go back to how things had been before.

They fell back into the easy bickering of their youth, it was even good-natured most of the time.

They could have been mistaken for friends if it weren’t for the fact that they painstakingly avoided every topic that mattered.

“If I get eaten by an undead Sith I’m haunting your ass, just so you know,” Poe declared cheerfully as they stepped into the temple.

He pointedly ignored Kylo’s glower and took point. There wasn’t quite as much heat to the glare anymore as there used to be, and Poe felt a little less uncomfortable turning his back to an old enemy.

It was cool inside, just like he remembered it from his childhood days when they would sometimes go wandering in the old Sith temples with their fathers. Ben had always been fascinated by Force users of ages past. Now with the eyes of an adult, Poe could see that Han had been grateful to have a way in which he could share in his son’s interests without needing to have the Force himself. As a child, he had simply loved to pretend that a Sith Lord was lurking behind every corner.

“So what exactly are you doing these days?” Poe finally asked when they were taking a break, leaning against their backpacks and drinking warm water from their canteens.

To his adult self, the crumbling Sith temple wasn’t as exciting as it had been to his younger self. There wasn’t actually a whole lot to see here, the Sith of old had never been known for their fancy interior architecture. Whatever lingered here of their presence required the Force to sense, which made for Kylo being twitchy and yes, that was funny alright, but it grew old after the first couple of hours.

Lingering presence or not, the day had mostly convinced him that the temples couldn’t be Kylo’s real reason for being on Yavin 4.

Kylo’s lips twisted into a grimace. “I have a ship.”

Poe snorted in amusement. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Cargo’s decent work.”

“I don’t…!” He sputtered a little before falling into sullen silence.

Poe just went back to sipping his water, he had no interest in pushing it. “It’s not like I can talk. I’m a veteran turned farmer.” Like his father. Just like Kylo seemed to be following in his father’s footsteps, in his own clumsy way.

Idly, Poe wondered if he regretted what he had done. They were nowhere near close enough that he could ask. But Kylo was here, on Yavin 4, and maybe that was the only answer he needed.

“Kes must be very proud of you.”

He nodded. “He is.” He turned the flask around in his hands. “I think Mom would be, too. They wanted me to grow up here. They thought I wouldn’t ever have to know war… They were wrong about that, of course, but she’d be glad that I was able to leave it behind when it was over, just like she did.”

“Is that why you came back?” Kylo’s voice was quiet, free of demands and scorn. He sounded a lot like the Ben Solo with whom Poe had had many such conversations in their youth

He licked his lips nervously, then gave himself a mental shove and nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Kylo. This way it was easier to pretend he was just talking to his friend Ben, with none of the baggage the war had added. “I didn’t want to become one of those people who carry the war with them all their lives.” He turned and turned the flask in his hands. “They offered me another promotion. High rank, nice office… the kind of life that comes with personal assistants and having a pilot instead of doing your own flying.”

“You became a soldier before the war began. You wanted a military life.”

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I did then. And it wasn’t bad. I liked flying an X-Wing in battle, I liked commanding people, saving the day… when you save it…”

And when you didn’t there were more tallies added to the list of people you couldn’t save. More tough choices which ones you tell to stay behind and die so they can cover the others’ retreat. Even on a good day, you came away with more blood on your hands – the only difference being whether the blood on your hands would belong to your wingmates or enemies.

“I guess I just had my fill of heroics.”

They fell silent and when they spoke again, by mutual wordless agreement they returned to the harmless small talk from before.

 

If you had told Poe a month ago that he would be bringing Kylo Ren to his mother’s grave, he would have told them to lay off on the Hutt liquor.

Yet here he stood, flowers clutched in his hand, Kylo standing a respectful distance but still close by.

There was no grave; like with many fighter pilots, Shara Bey’s body had never been recovered and returned to her family. His Dad and he had engraved a memorial stone and placed it near the Force tree so they would always have a place to go when they wished to talk to Shara.

“I would rather sit in her A-Wing when I wanted to feel close to her,” he whispered through the emotions choking him all over again. It was a little silly, he mused, Ben had been around to witness all that, he didn’t need to tell him. But he needed to break the silence.

He could hear him take a step closer. “I remember.”

He started when he felt Kylo’s hand on his shoulder, then made himself consciously relax again a moment later. Poe let his eyes fall shut, he inhaled deeply and simply soaked up the warmth of human touch.

It was startling to let Kylo so close again but once you got past the weird it felt good to have him here again – just like with every step they had taken towards another over the past weeks.

He was here, one of the few friends he had left who remembered Poe with his Mom, who could share his memories of her. L’ulo had been the last of Shara’s squadron to be part of Poe’s life, had even served in his own squadron, but he had died for the Resistance like so many others. Between two wars there weren’t many left who remembered.

There were still so many things they had never spoken of – the big things like responsibility and guilt and the difference between redemption and absolution, or their more personal demons like what had happened on Jakku and the Finalizer and Black One blowing up in Poe’s face or just the fact that Ben had vanished from Poe’s life without so much as a single message that he was alive, if not well.

There were many things they hadn’t spoken of and for now, Poe realized, he was kind of okay with not speaking of it – living in the here and now and for the future, and leaving their painful past to be revisited another day.

Poe exhaled. With it, he felt a little lighter. “Remember when she gave me that awful haircut? You couldn’t stop laughing for the rest of your visit.”

Kylo scoffed playfully. “You looked like something had been eating your hair!”

“And you had that ugly bowl cut!”

“And you laughed, too!”

Poe flashed him a wink. “Hey, not true!” When Kylo kept _looking_ at him, he raised his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, I did, but only behind your back.”

There was a lightness to Poe’s steps as they left the memorial stone and the Force tree behind which he rarely felt after visiting his mother these days – his mind dwelling on the good memories of the time they’d had together, not on her loss.

He didn’t know how to ask without being too pushy but more than once he wondered if it was the same for Kylo, if his good memories were what had drawn Kylo to Yavin 4 out of all the worlds in the galaxy.

It was strange, he told BB-8 later. When the droid asked him _what_ was strange he didn’t know – didn’t dare – to put it into words.

 

There was a small waterfall not far from the house, feeding a lake at the bottom. It looked like something right out of some tourist holofilm except that the area was swarming with glass snakes, translucent snakes whose bite was largely harmless but would put you into an hour-long sleep. It had been their favorite place as children.

“I don’t get to come out here often anymore,” Poe explained as they plodded through the underbrush, “BB-8 hates fighting his way through the foliage and it’s inadvisable to come alone. An hour of being unconscious is long enough for something to find you and see if you’re edible.”

“Afraid the gundarks will come and get you, Dameron?”

Poe let go of the branch he had pushed out of the way and let it spring back, right into Kylo’s face.

It hadn’t even been that funny but Kylo’s ongoing grumbles ensured that Poe was snickering all the way to the waterfall.

The large rock with a perfect view of the waterfall and the lake was still where it had always been, only covered by a little more lichen than Poe remembered. He plopped down his backpack at his feet and folded his hands behind his head.

“What was that about gundarks, Solo?” He shot Kylo at his side a quizzical look.

A couple of weeks ago Kylo had finally given in to inevitability and swapped his black clothes which had been clearly modelled on the robes he once wore for a more sensible combination of shirt and pants and boots suited to actual plodding through untouched nature and crumbling rocks, not just to looking like you could grind your enemies into dust beneath your heels. Poe didn’t miss that he had already worn such clothes when they first ran into another, only to return to something very close to his Kylo Ren persona once Poe had stepped back into his life, as if he wished to remind both of them who he had been.

The sleeveless shirt clung to his toned chest and showed off his sweat-glistening biceps. Poe would have been lying if he said he hadn’t let his eyes linger once or twice. He forced himself to face the waterfall again, though not without one last appreciative glance. Alright, maybe more than once or twice.

Kylo narrowed black eyes at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Just wondering…” He let his grin turn very, very cocky. “Because if you’re not scared of aquatic gundarks we could cool off…” He shrugged lazily and let his own muscles ripple in the motion. He had been noticing Kylo’s eyes on him, too. “But if you are…”

“I’m not scared,” Kylo declared boldly. He let his eyes wander over the placid surface of the lake, stirred up only near the waterfall. “The gundark would go for you first, anyway. You’re bite-sized!”

“I am what!” Poe bristled with mock indignation – well, half mock indignation, he was not bite-sized! “Just because you’re overgrown. Are you sure you aren’t half Wookiee?”

“Are you sure you aren’t half Ewok?”

Already laughing, he elbowed Kylo, who gave an _oof_ of protest but joined in the snickers anyway.

When they fell silent their eyes met.

Poe felt light. There were still so many things unsaid about them, they weren’t forgotten, they weren’t fixed, but right now they didn’t matter. Right now he felt light and laughter came more easily to them than anger.

After everything that had happened, they had earned some laughter.

Poe held Kylo’s gaze and leaned closer, at the same time as Kylo was leaning in, too. He could feel his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

Their lips met, Kylo’s firm against his, no hesitation. Kylo’s tongue was hot, his mouth a little dry like Poe’s own because they had slacked off on keeping hydrated… and he laughed into the kiss, laughed and leaned against him forehead to forehead, hands on Kylo’s broad shoulders.

“Well, alright, maybe you’re not a Wookiee,” Poe whispered against Kylo’s lips. Kylo was still laughing when Poe’s tongue slipped back into his mouth and silenced his snickers.

It wasn’t perfect and they could have built a wall with all the things that remained unsaid between them. But for today Poe was content to live in the here and now and to rediscover the heady joy of Ben Solo’s kisses.


End file.
